


holocene

by zinthos



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-it fic, M/M, minor episode prompto spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 20:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11448165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinthos/pseuds/zinthos
Summary: Prompto chokes out a little laugh. “Dude, not in the slightest.” He chances a glance his way, looks away again when he notices Noct’s still staring. “Look… You’re here, yanno? You’re not dead, like you were supposed to be. If coming back from that messed something inside you up, then I’m willing to wait ‘til you’re ready. Because… b-because you’rehere.”Some stories hold secrets and twists and the biggest twist in the story of the King of Lucis is that dead as he’s been for the past three days, he rises from where he lies on a cold, hard table.





	holocene

This story begins near what is supposed to be the end.

Prompto Argentum spends ten years in something like limbo, living in a daze, like a zombie. He tries to keep the world safe—the keyword here is _tries_. But there’s just _so much_ you can do when the world is in ruins and all colors are drained by night and terror.

He becomes a tinkerer, picks up new skills like enhancing guns and perfecting his aim. A feat for someone that never misses. But the world is dark and night never ends. Shadows have swallowed more than corners, festering over streets and buildings and haunting what’s left of the populace. It’s only fair that Prompto makes himself better than good and better than the best.

During what should be day, he hunts and saves and during what should be night he dreams of easier times. Times where the sun would rise and waking up a sleepy prince was the hardest task set upon him.

Sometimes, he dreams about a moment stolen between the end of before and the start of the now. A cold, empty room with nothing but a set of bunk beds and two idiots sitting cross each other, in a sad attempt of back to back.

He dreams about the words exchanged and he dreams about the feelings inside him back then because they’re the same feelings inside him now. He dreams about gray-blue eyes and a soft, thin smile. He dreams of that sensation of their eyes meeting and _ever at your side_.

But then there are other times where he doesn’t dream about the Crows Nest and four runaways sitting together, eyes out the window and _waiting_ because in their place are nightmares. White dogs and snowy terrain, fallen robotic soldiers and demonized fathers.

But that’s all in the before, and this is a story is set in the now. Prompto Argentum keeps all that locked inside himself as he tries for ten years until what should be a prize is granted upon not just him and his efforts but the efforts of his friends and all those that keep _trying_ to survive.

But it’s not really a prize, right? Not when it’s all set in stone and is supposed to come to pass. Its just time moving forward despite the stagnant backdrop. It’s only _right_.

Ten years later, in a night much like all others, starless and the moon the only thing they can see for miles and miles outside the haven they’ve all created, Noctis Lucis Caelum returns.

 

-

 

“Have you guys looked in a mirror lately?” Noctis asks as he’s offered food. Being asleep should warrant the mother of appetite of all appetites. But Noctis merely pushes his food from one edge to the other. “You look old and ugly." 

Prompto, sitting right across from him whistles, his hand resting on his palm held up by his elbow resting on the surface of the rough table. “It’s nice to see you too, buddy. You look like you’re _thirty_.”

Noctis looks up at him and it’s a mind-jarring feeling to see him like this. His hair longer, falling to his shoulders, messy and grimy and tangled as it is. He has a beard now, following the sharp lines of his jaw and chin, caging his full lips and having Prompto believe for a second after every blink that King Regis is still alive in the ghost of who his son has become.

“At least I don’t have dirt on my chin,” Noctis sneers, his lips in a smirk and his beard twitching with the movements of his facial features. He lifts a hand up and scratches at his chin and it’s like if Noctis has never left and has always been here, aging with them in a destroyed world. 

“The _rudest_ ,” Prompto accuses, pointing a finger at him and turning to Gladio, sitting next to him, as the bigger man snickers. “It took me _years_ to grow this bad boy out—Iggy, _defend me_.”

“I rather not,” Ignis drawls, his own hand coming up to touch his smooth jaw. “I’ve grown quite tired of you and your hairy business.”

“Oh man,” Noctis groans, rolling his gray eyes. “That was as terrible as all your puns, Specs.”

“Thank you,” Ignis says with a smile.

It’s the most ridiculous reunion but they’re ridiculous men. The four of them, sitting in a worn out booth, in each other’s company and never looking out the window because all that’s there is bright, lights and hunters still adjusting to the never ending night and the daemons roaming in the shadows as if it hasn’t been ta decade.

But like much of everything, it all ends and they’re listening to Noctis tell them they have to go as soon as possible.

“There’s a world to save,” he says and his voice is soft and tired, his eyes downcast. “I’ve let my people live like this for too long.”

“What’s the plan, then?” Gladio asks, leaning forwards and his amber eyes all serious as he studies the man they used to know.

Insomnia, of course.

A full circle.

They’re to go back where it all started, where the center of all the destruction is nestled like an infection. They’ll take it all back, Noctis tells them, they’ll rip Insomnia out of Ardyn’s grip and Lucis along with it. The world will get cleansed of the Scourge and after, when that all happens, the rebuilding will start. 

It sounds like a solid plan, Prompto thinks. Despite how difficult it sounds and the odds that will undoubtedly be set against them—it’s a solid plan and with the four of them they can make it happen.

So they leave two nights after Noctis’ return.

They’re dressed in their royal garbs, the King of Lucis and his Crownsguard.

They walk in the shadows and ignore how it follows them. Daemons spawn in every direction and it feels as if they’ve been fighting for years and years after that too. And that’s how it actually has been, isn’t it? The fighting, the manifestation of magical weapons, the slaying of those that don’t belong, of all the evil that come and continue to come?

The Haven is less than a mile away from the bridge that will get them back into Insomnia. They set up and as they sit in their chairs, familiar as it should be, Noctis tells them the truth.

It’s riddled with unfairness and death and Prompto is glad when he realizes his aren’t the only eyes clouded with unshed tears. Noctis looks tired and older than he now is. He smiles at them, soft and humble and Prompto _hates_ it.

He’s made peace, he says, with what should be done but there’s no peace in how he looks at them, a yearning so thick, it leaves him pale. Longing, as if they aren’t right in front of him. Searching, as if they aren’t at his side.

Prompto lowers his head and cries, listens to the way Ignis’ voice shakes and the way Gladio sniffs.

There’s always pain near the end of a story, and the story of the King of Lucis is a painful one. They sit in each other’s company for the rest of the night, stealing glances and memorizing that which they’ll lose so that they’ll never forget.

 

-

 

And then the end.

Daemons spawn and spawn and continue to do so no matter how much they take down and how hard they fight. They aren’t Red Daemons or the usual that they fight; they’re stronger and far more clever.

Prompto shoots with Lionheart and Quicksilver in each of his grip. He drops to the ground, on his knees or in a roll, covering the blindspots of his friends. And this feels like forever, but he’ll take it—forever, in this moment, fighting never ending armies of daemons so long as it means that Noctis still lives somewhere inside the Citadel, zig-zagging through a maze and never reaching his last destination. 

And then, forever later, there are no more daemons and blood and sweat and fatigue rules their limbs.

Prompto clutches his guns tightly and sobs as they begin to shatter into blue light, rising in the air with the wind, like petals of flowers from a dream.

“The world can go to hell,” he mutters, his breathing quickening as the sky’s color shifts and it’s no longer a dark indigo but a lightening blue, soft pink and orange where the sun begins to rise. “The world can _go to hell_!”

He crouches down, hands in his grimy blond hair, shaking with nerves and years of pent up anxiety. Prompto only rises up when Gladio and Ignis approach, when he feels one of their hands—maybe Ignis? It’s a soft touch for someone so close to breaking like him.

The walk through the Citadel is an awful one. Quiet and haunting, ghosts of guards and Kings watching from their hiding places behind pillars and photographs older than perhaps time itself.

In the throne room, Noctis sits on his throne, prophecy fulfilled and it shows. Not by the rising dawn, the vulgar, earth-shaking screams and roars of the demons incinerating by the mere light. But by the way his head ducks low, chin resting against his chest, his most prized weapon, Sword of the Father, impaled into him, keeping him in place and letting blood pool on the seat itself.

This is where the story ends.

 

-

 

But some stories hold secrets and twists and the biggest twist in the story of the King of Lucis is that dead as he’s been for the past three days, he rises from where he lies on a cold, hard table.

He’s confused and the gasp of air he inhales is teeth-grinding awful. His eyes are pink and glassy and his skin is still pale, lips still blue and life still seeping into him as he sits up, his dirty, bloody clothes rumpled and heavy with stench.

“What’s happening,” Ignis asks, reaching out a hand but dropping it with a furrow of his brow. “Prompto?” A second later, “Gladio?” 

“I-Iggy…” Prompto tries. “Iggy can you… can you try to summon a dagger?”

“What?” Ignis looks upset now, his scarred lips tilted downwards, his unseeing eyes set to the right, a little too far from where Noctis sits, lost and dazed and maybe still, in someway, dead. “Prompto, you _know_ —“

“A dagger or a lance—Ignis… please…” Prompto can’t look at him to let his gaze weigh on his skin and show he’s _not_ joking and this is a _real_ request. He can’t do this because he can’t look away from Noctis, the static-likeness around him, the miasma of magic that envelops him, the way his paleness slowly starts to darken into something natural, something healthy.

So Ignis does it. 

He extends a hand out and tries to find an ether that is not there, tries to open a door that’s been locked away with the key lost forever. And he tries to pull out a dagger from the space once shared between four and onto the realness of life, heavy in his grip.

And Prompto knows Ignis had expected nothing, just as he did, just as Gladio, stiff and unmoving a step or three in front of them, had too. But it’s there, the dagger. Cold and real in Ignis’ hand.

“This—“ Ignis stops, licks his lower lip. “Noct?”

There is no reply and the three stand there, in the room that housed the dead King, the last King, while they considered and decided on tombs and locations.

Prompto moves, ignores the way Gladio tries to tell him otherwise, wiry, jerkiness managing to escape the bigger man’s searching grip so that Prompto can stumble to Noct’s side.

Noct hasn’t moved, his glazed pink eyes staring at his lap, his hair over his face, his beard stiff. 

“Noct?” Prompto tries, placing a hand on the edge of the stone table and dipping down closer, trying to find a way to lock eyes with his best friend. “Noct… _Noctis_?”

But what sets Noctis off is a touch, a hand on his knee that breaks the thick trance and has him screaming with horror and all these emotions Prompto doesn’t _get_. He lurches, spine arching as he turns away and vomits nothing but stomach acid.

His chest heaves as he breathes, like he’s trying to remember how to do it but to no avail. He’s breathing too fast, too hard, his eyes wild as he turns back to them, staring at Ignis and Gladio that hover in the back, waiting for some attack and then to Prompto who stays there, right next to him, his violet-blue eyes searching and _desperate_.

“I’m alive,” Noctis finally manages to choke. “I was dead—I—I was _dead_ and now—“

Prompto wraps his arms around him, feels the way he shakes and tries to make it stop, like some natural force. Ignis and Gladio are there in a second, wariness long thrown aside as they cage each other in a hug that perhaps they should have shared days before, when night still existed and daemons weren’t a nightmare.

 

-

 

Noctis doesn’t eat. 

He sits on a bed, only moving when Ignis comes to help him remember how to move his arms, shift his legs. It’s an agonizingly slow process but Noct tries, despite the lost look in his eyes.

Gladio handles the beginning of the rebuilding. He’s frustrated more often now, running a hand through his long hair, reading over papers and listening to people through the phone, letting him know that Lestallum is fine and there’s people heading to Insomnia. To restart and rebuild, the old has to be cleaned out and there’s so much of that in their home city, so many broken buildings and abandoned cars.

Prompto can’t find it in him to leave Noct’s side. It’s selfish and stupid but it’s been over ten years since they were forced out of the single entity they once were and back to the individuals they neglected.

He checks on him as often as he can, sometimes running late to his own duties in favor of sitting around and keeping his best friend company. 

“You should try eating,” Prompto tries to convince him, breaking him out of his reverie and earning Noct’s glazed eyes to turn to him. “It’ll help, buddy.” 

“I want to,” Noct confesses. “But…” he shakes his head. “There’s an emptiness that’s so… _heavy_. I can’t… Sometimes I feel dead, still.”

Prompto sits on the edge of the bed rather than his chair. “Maybe it’s something that isn’t supposed to leave. M-maybe it’s supposed to stay for a while, ‘til you move on from it.”

“Yeah?” Noct looks at him and the pink in his eyes are definitely gone now, leaving behind the familiar gray-blue that shine like stars.

Prompto shrugs.

Noctis licks his lips and looks away again, towards the window where the clear daylight shines in and covers the room in brightness.

“Stay with me for the day,” Noct asks, as if sensing that Prompto should go and take care of his duties. But Prompto doesn’t need to be convinced to drop everything and stay—Gladio and Ignis are more capable of all this, of the paperwork and the planning and giving out orders.

So Prompto leans back on the bed, lying on it across its length. “Hey?”

“Yeah?” Noctis asks.

“Do you remember us in high school?” Prompto’s grin is nostalgic and he doesn’t really know why he’s bringing high school up. Maybe it’s because Noct’s supposed to be dead and Prompto’s felt lonelier than ever this past week, these past ten years. “How it was _you_ that found the easy ways to skip out?”

Noctis is quiet for a long moment, long enough to have Prompto believe that he doesn’t remember and that being dead for those few days has wiped out his memory.

But then, “I did a pretty good job at hopping fences.” 

“Better than good,” Prompto laughs. “Some prince, huh?”

“Some king.”

It’s quiet after that but at least they’re in each other’s company.

 

-

 

The thing is that Noctis does try and when Ignis comes for the shitty therapy that he can manage given his circumstances and where they’re at in the rebuilding of the world, it shows. 

Noctis can stand from the bed now and he takes a shaky step or two before he’s just _tired_.

 

-

 

“Do you remember,” Noctis asks him one day when they lie on his bed, side by side and going through all the stupid things they’d do when they were younger. “Do you remember Zegnautus Keep?”

“Oh man,” Prompto laughs and it’s the driest, least humorous thing he’s ever managed. “How can I ever forget?”

Noctis nods, blinking his eyes and he sits up, runs his hands through his hair. “Remember what I said?" 

“You said a lot of things,” Prompto manages.

Noctis shakes his head this time and turns to him for a second. “I said I was going to make this world a better place.”

“Yeah,” Prompto answers, his heartstrings tightening. “And you asked me if I was with you.”

“You said yeah,” Noctis continues. “You said ‘ever at your side’.”

Prompto is quiet because he remembers dreaming that memory for nights on end during the darkness, a treasure amongst the nightmares that came before it, the snowy terrain and the laboratories he ran through to find his way out.

“I dreamt about it a lot,” he confesses, quiet and just a bit lost. He laughs a bit, “I know it’s a bit weird but… It kept me going, I guess.”

Noctis is looking at him again, and the look, the position almost mirrors the same one from that day. He’s much older, of course, with his beard and the bags under his eyes. “Are you still with me, though?”

“Huh?" 

“I’m _going_ to make this world a better place,” Noctis tells him. “You still with me?”

Prompto studies him, a hand resting on his stomach, the other playing with the buttons of his Crownsguard jacket. There’s a fluttering inside him, like thousands of wings flapping at once. He grins and the laugh is bashful, incredulous and maybe just a little touched with love. “I said ever at your side, dude. Going to sleep for ten years and dying isn’t gonna change that.”

Noctis laughs and it’s as infectious and nice to listen to as it’s always been. Prompto elbows him as he chuckles along with him.

 

-

 

Maybe it’s months later when Noctis finally leaves the room. His steps are jerky and his chest rises and falls rapidly with how fast he breathes. He wears bits of his kingly uniform, the cape and shoulder armor left behind so their weight won’t tire him out.

He leaves the building where he’s been living and he observes Insomnia for what it is: a mess of brokenness and the past. Ignis, Gladio and Prompto are with him, dressed in their uniforms and ready to give him the tour before they sit and discuss in detail all that’s to be planned.

Noctis walks with a limp, the knee brace much more help than it’d once been. He stares at the empty streets with a gleam in his eyes and a press of his lips. But then the people catch his presence, dropping down from the giant construction trucks taking away the rubble to give way for rebuilding.

But then, there’s a crowd and Noctis is watching them as they filter in, standing before him and looking at him with awe and wonder. _The King is supposed to be dead_ , is all they’re murmuring as one, like the buzzing of a bee.

Noct’s not dead though, Prompto moves as Ignis and Gladio do, protective in the way they stand around him, like the points to a star.

“King Noctis,” they call.

Prompto watches him flinch for a bit before he tries to stand tall, his shoulders squared.

“I’m sorry,” Noctis says and it’s clear and unwavering as he regards the crowd. “It’s taking me longer than it should to get better. And I’m leaving you all ignored but I… I promise I’m _trying_ and I’ll be here, helping you all, soon enough.”

It’s the most kingly Prompto’s heard Noctis be, not counting the time in Zegnautus Keep. He looks at the people in front of him with sincerity in his eyes and that little bit of desperation he can’t shake off.

But the crowd cheers and thanks him, all filled with delight to see him _alive_ and well and making an effort to communicate with his people. There is a King and the people of Lucis have not been abandoned. Prompto grins as those closer to Noctis take his hand, give it a squeeze and bow as they move away.

The four of them walk down the jagged streets, Prompto just about hovering near his best friend, watching his movements and sucking air when he pauses to catch his breath.

Noctis turns to him, his expression pinched but his lips in a ghost of an amused smirk. “You’re treating me the same way you’d treat Ignis in Catarnica. I’m not _invalid_.”

“Why, thank you,” Ignis scoffs. “I see how it is.”

Silence falls around them as Noct, Prompto and Gladio turn to give Ignis the most exasperated looks they can manage. It’s a nice little moment, not counting Ignis’ terrible jokes at his own expense. It’s like they were before, in the interlude between the Before and the Now.

“I’m not doin’ anything,” Prompto finally scoffs as they start to walk again, boots scuffing the pebbles on the ground. “Just my job, I mean.”

“ _Hardly_ ,” Gladio is quick to say. “ _I’ve_ been picking up your slack since you’ve decided napping with Prince Charmless is much more important.”

Prompto flusters.

“ _First of all_ ,” Noct sneers. “It’s _King_ Charmless now, so get it right. Second of all—“

“You can barely walk, man, do you seriously think it’s alright to pour your energy in _sass_?” Gladio asks, his grin wide and crooked. 

“I’ll show _you_ sass,” Noctis mutters but he doesn’t finish his previous bout of snarky remarks.

They walk for a long time, Prompto and the others slowing down to walk at Noct’s speed. They’re being waited upon when they finally make their way to the Citadel. It causes them to pause and stare at the building, broken in some parts but still standing as tall as ever, like a pillar for the broken city.

Prompto, against his better judgment, grabs Noct’s forearm and tightens his grip, his eyes on him as if he looks away, Noct’ll leave them outside again and go off to die. It’s something ugly and filled with anxiety. He hasn’t been here since the night that brought the sun back and now that he is….

Noctis looks at him for a moment, his expression tired and soft but he says nothing and he doesn’t pull away from his touch.

Iris and Cor are there and so is Aranea, all waiting for them and eyeing Noct the moment he comes into the hall where they all sit. Noctis takes his seat, stiffer than before now that he has new eyes on him, observing his every moment and every strand of his hair.

“Yeah,” he sighs, leaning back on his seat. “I’m shocked too.”

“What do you mean, Noct?” Iris asks with a tilt of her head.

Noct doesn’t reply and they all sit there in silence.

Prompto is the first to pick up his documents, messy as they are. “Galdin’s got a _lot_ of work to do. Its waters are dirtied and the entire shore is filled with muck and decayed corpses.”

“Mmm, yes,” Ignis inclines his head. “Two of our biggest groups have been sent to work there. The resort itself must be torn down and rebuilt.”

“Understanding,” Noct murmurs, listening from where he sits at the head of the table, chin tucked in between his thumb and forefinger.

“Lestallum doesn’t have much to be worked on,” Iris reports, lifting her folder up and opening it. “We were of the least to be affected by the times of ruin.”

“As expected with the power plant,” Noctis agrees. “Having Lestallum in one piece is a big asset to the rebuilding itself. It demonstrates that there’s still some stability.”

“Hammerhead’s hard at work. Passed by on my way over here,” Cor says. “Cindy’s got her guys clearing the fences and opening it all back up. She says she’ll be moving her attention to the rest of Leide once she has the place down and running.”

“Insomnia’s our biggest problem,” Gladio adds. “As the crown city, it’s the one that was hit hardest. This past week, we’ve found daemons still surviving down in the subways. I say rebuilding’s got to wait here, at least til we round up some hunters and takeout any threats the sun’s missed.”

“Then we’ll do that,” Noctis agrees, absentmindedly stroking his beard. “Talcott can handle a group and you can lead the other. We’ll pause any projects started in the meantime.” He looks down at the stacks of paper each person sitting with him holds and then closes his eyes for a bit. “I want someone sent to Altissia and another to what’s left of Tenebrae. I need to know where they’re at, in this point.”

“Majesty?” Ignis asks, brow furrowed. Prompto slowly looks from him back to Noct as he absorbs the title. 

“I…” Noctis pauses and licks his lips. “I don’t know how exactly I’ve returned from the dead and frankly it’s not something I want to figure out. I want to concentrate on this. Rebuilding not just my country but also the rest of the world. I’m going to take down the borders and unite all nations. _That_ is my true goal here.” 

“Ambitious,” Aranea comments, a smirk on her lips. 

“No,” Noct laughs a bit. “I’m just tired of fighting.” He looks at her. “I’d like you to go to Niflheim and collect information on its damage. Niflheim’s where it all started and is probably unsalvageable; that doesn’t matter though because I’ll take what’s left of it, build something new. This will take _years_ but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to make this world a better place.” By now, Noctis’ hands are fists as they rest at the table and sitting where he does, to Ignis’ left, Prompto’s eyes find his. “Are you all with me?”

It’s all the same words but it holds a different meaning, a different impact to when he’d said them to Prompto alone. He’s all business here, a King at work. When he says it to Prompto, it’s from the heart, a shy and anxious boy, trying to balance the weight of the world on his shoulder and asking this one person if he’ll stick around with him through it all, lending a hand, picking him back up when he falls.

The meeting ends with a new resolution.

Gladio will lead the hunters in search of any stray daemons or beasts within the crown city. Iris will look over Lestallum and all regions near it while Ignis will find a representative to head out to Tenebrae while he himself will go to Altissia and Aranea to Niflheim.

Cor, as the eldest and one with most experience, will be the envoy looking over the rest of the country, traveling back and forth from one point to the other.

Prompto’s to join him, being the King’s eyes and ears but his main job is to watch over Insomnia’s surface while Gladio’s down below and Ignis away on traveling. This also happens to include being Noct’s personal guard until he’s built up enough strength to join them all in their tasks.

They leave the Citadel with heavier stacks of paper, but there’s a shift in the air and Prompto thinks he likes it. It feels a lot like the beginning they’ve all been waiting for.

 

-

 

“You don’t hav’ta do anything to Niflheim,” Prompto says as he lies back on the foot of Noct’s bed, his arms in the air. He’s shrugged off his Crownsguard jacket and the black of his barcode stands out more than usual under the lighting in the room. “You can just let it die.”

“Why would I do that?” Noct asks and his hair is such a wild mess, Prompto has to concentrate to keep himself from snickering.

“Because that place is, I don’t know, dude, evil?”

“No it’s not,” Noct snorts, rolling his eyes. “The ones that are evil are dead. Niflheim as a whole… isn’t evil.”

Prompto’s quiet for a moment, shifting so he’s leaning his weight on an elbow as he sits up a bit to look at him. “You sound so kingly now, Noct.”

“G-good,” Noctis stammers, his skin flushed and his eyes avoiding him. “I have to… now. But I’m being serious… I mean… You’re from there and you aren’t evil.”

This silences Prompto but it ignites fire in his chest, scorching enough to have him avoid Noct’s probing gaze. He’s nervous now, feeling light and ridiculous and maybe, just a tiny bit in love. It’s a feeling that’s always been there, hiding just beneath the surface but influencing all his decisions up to this day. It rumbles, like a sleeping beast, when Noct’s like this: sincere and with his entire focus on him, like the rest of the world finally doesn’t matter enough because here Prompto sits, in his company, so close and never far.

“Heh,” he chuckle snow, thin lips twitching as he fights to keep his grin in place in order to send the grimace away. “Why’s it always sound like you’re hittin’ on me, when you talk like that." 

“Maybe I am.”

Prompto presses his lips together and doesn’t look at him.

 

-

 

And so, time passes. 

Prompto spends most of the day looking over all movements in Insomnia, helping where he can and taking notes on progress and requests. He gets down and dirty with the workers, sometimes, and the few times a beast or another’s managed to spring out from rubble being moved, Prompto’s summoned Lionheart from the ether and saved the day. 

When he’s finished, he wanders over to Noct’s place where he cleans up as best he can but he’s never been like Iggy. He’ll pick up dirty clothes while making offhanded remarks about the King of Lucis being such a slob.

He tries to cook and for the most part he’s successful so long as the meals are simple and he doesn’t get overly ambitious. They’ll sit on the ground, where a couch should be and eat while Prompto fills him in on all that’s occurred that day.

Rebuilding goes on and the people grow more hopeful and with that, their resolve to continue and to work strengthens.

One day, Prompto tells him this with a gleam in his eyes and Noct looks at him for a long moment. Prompto feels the weight of his stare on his freckled skin, heavy and not the least bit demanding. Just curious.

“You think you’re ready to join us out there?” Prompto asks, pretending to not take note of his stare, a conversation that was being born but Prompto’s never given it a chance. 

“You think I’m slacking off?” Noct asks back, an eyebrow raised and his expression soft and just as curious. Prompto thinks his beard needs a trim; not a downright shave, but just a trim to get the scraggly ends off. He… he _likes_ the stupid beard on him.

The thought flusters him and he looks away as he chokes out a little laugh. “Dude, not in the _slightest_.” He chances a glance his way, looks away again when he notices Noct’s still staring. “Look… You’re _here_ , yanno? You’re not dead, like you were supposed to be. If coming back from that messed something inside you up, then I’m willing to wait ‘til you’re ready. Because… b-because you’re _here_.”

The plates sit empty in front of them and Prompto’s palms are sweaty under his gloves. Maybe he could’ve found a less sappier way to say all that. Someway that doesn’t sound like a goddamn confession or something.

It’s just a little heavy, he guesses. Having these moments with Noct; it’s like they’re trying to fit in everything that they didn’t get a chance to, in those lost ten years, in the fleeting hours before his impending doom or the restless ones of his miraculous revival.

It’s like they’re trying to say everything they didn’t get a chance to, once upon a time, in their intertwining story.

“Are you confessing or something?” Noct asks and there’s a smile in his voice and though it isn’t teasing or amused it still sets Prompto off. 

He says, “Were you? In Zegnautus Keep?”

And he twitches at the thought, closes his eyes because he’s gone and made everything awkward, planted and nourished something that maybe he shouldn’t have. If Noct’d made his peace with dying once, Prompto had made his with burying his feelings and letting them wither there where they’d lie. 

Noctis doesn’t answer and Prompto grabs their plates and moves to the dusty kitchen to wash them. He’s stiff as he does so and he’s already rehearsing an excuse to run away and to his own dingy little hole in the dead city.

“It…wasn’t,” Noctis says and he’s standing at the entrance of the kitchen, giving Prompto no room to run. “But it could’a been… It… maybe it was and I just didn’t—“

“Dude, chill,” Prompto manages to laugh, trying to hide how twitchy he is. “I wasn’t being serious…”

“I was… am. I _am_.” Noct looks annoyed now and he moves closer, his hair shadowing his features and his beard in desperate need of a trim. “I asked you if you were with me. And you _said_ —“

“I know what I said, Noct.” Prompto crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“So if I was confessing, were you confessing back? Right there?”

Prompto laughs and shakes his head, leaning against the counters and trying so desperately to hide his nerves. “I can’t believe we’re talking about this when there’s more pressing matters.”

“This _is_ a pressing matter.”

“Hate to break it to ya, buddy, but it’s not—“

Noctis moves with the refinedness he’d been missing when he’d first returned from the dead. It’s still a bit jerky, still a bit sluggish but he catches Prompto by surprise, his hands caging him in between his body and the counters, his gray-blue eyes determined and as desperate as they’ve been since his second return.

“It is to _me_ ,” he says, voice low. “I was robbed ten years of my life. Do you… ever think about what could’ve happened if I’d been here? If I never left—because I do. A lot. You said you _dreamt_ about that time, Prompto, why the _hell_ are you…Do you not want this?”

“What is _this_ , exactly?” Prompto asks, his eyes searching. “What is it and why’s it coming out now?”

“Is it, though?” Noct laughs. “Or has it always been there?”

 

-

 

Prompto pours himself in his work, spending longer time with the workers and leaning over blueprints to give it all the clear or have them rework things. He’s still a technophile and he enthusiastically gives any pointers when it comes to machinery and the tech parts of rebuilding.

He leaves Insomnia for a few days, meeting up with Cor at Hammerhead, where he hides in the garage and tinkers with guns that no one probably needs anymore.

It’s a nervous habit, a stupid one too and Cindy knows it. It’s how he managed to stay sane for ten years, after all. Pouring his attention to the pieces, the way his thin fingers move and pull and jerk.

It’s so stupid, he thinks, running greasy hands through his hair.

A lover’s spat of some twisted sort during the most crucial time of reconstruction. And it’s not that Prompto’s _angry_ so much as he’s unaccepting of what, as Noctis mentioned, probably has always been there.

He’s so used to _wanting_ and never being able to get. Noct’s a King and, once, he’d been engaged to a princess. How can he downgrade to him, Prompto Argentum. A tinkerer, a survivor, a body sack with the blood of a once-enemy?

He’s a guard.

He’s not…He’s not _special_. He’s not anything.

“Any harder and you’ll break the ol’ thing, hun,” Cindy comments and she sets a small glass of whiskey down in front of him. “You need this more than me.”

 

-

 

But what does _he_ want?

 

-

 

He returns to the crown city to find the restoration still going strong. Noctis is among them, dressed in simple garbs, far too similar to what he’d worn when they’d been on the road. 

His hair is pulled back in the saddest attempt of a ponytail and his beard’s been trimmed nicely. He stands amongst a small group, listening to something or other and he nods, eyes downcast the way they are when he’s taking in every bit of information. And then he’s moving, helping in building and setting up the bones of skyscrapers, lifting and moving glass windows and metal doors.

Prompto makes himself known when he lifts the other end of a set of tiles and follows Noct’s lead on where to set them down. He heaves a breath when they’re done, hands on his hips while Noct claps his to free them of powdered cement. 

“What’s this supposed to be?” Prompto asks with a grin, trying to reach for the little ponytail sticking up at the base of his neck.

“Cute, right?” Noct asks, lips in a soft, cool smile.

“Definitely.”

Gladio and Talcott’s group has resurfaced during his time away, Noct fills him in. There wasn’t much trouble, but it wasn’t a total waste either. Ignis has contacted him from Altissia and is on his way to rendezvous with the representative in Tenebrae. 

Aranea’s still yet to report back.

“So,” Noctis begins as they walk back to his little place. “Are you done avoiding me?”

Prompto laughs a bit and shakes his head. “The _rudest_.”

And for a long while it’s the only thing he says, until they’re in Noct’s little place, all messy and dusty. One day, he’ll have to move back into the Citadel, Prompto thinks. He’ll live in King Regis’ old chambers and he’ll rule over this city and the rest of the country. But this is where he’s starting, this little hole in the wall fit for a story to tell.

“I wasn’t _avoiding_ you,” Prompto lies. “I was just doing my job. Jeez, Noct, have some _faith_.”

“I always have faith in you.”

Prompto sucks in air and, really, he wants to just… _smack_ him a little. He takes a step closer, hands twitchy at his side. “You gotta stop doing that, buddy. It makes me wanna…”

“Wanna what?” Noctis asks, head tilted just a bit.

Prompto falters a bit, a foot in the air to take another step closer. He tries to remind himself—what does _he_ want. What does he _want_? _What_ does he want?

He’s cupping Noct’s cheeks in his hands, leaning in and brushing his lips against his. It’s like fireworks behind his closed eyes, explosive in the fulfillment he feels, rumbling in his chest and dropping to the pit of his stomach. 

Noctis doesn’t let him pull back so fast, searching, following as Prompto tries to lean away. They kiss each other with the awkwardness of their twenty-year-old selves, unsure and a bit clumsy. It’s the softest thing ever done to him and Prompto sees _fireworks_. Blinding in their brightness.

“That,” he breathes, “it makes me wanna do that.”

“Do it more often,” Noct suggests and he grins when Prompto snorts and pulls away so he can properly smack him. 

“That was ten years delayed,” Prompto says instead, freckled cheeks blotchy with a flush.

“Maybe longer,” Noctis implies and Prompto doesn’t say anything to suggest otherwise.

“We should make up for lost time,” Prompto advises, his grin mischievous and his eyes bright. “You have a lot of things to make up for?”

Noct lifts an eyebrow.

“Pushing me off the train, that sly confession, going to sleep for ten fucking years,” Prompto tallies on his fingers, laughing as Noctis reaches over to shove him away. “Dying and coming back, being a zombie for a while, taking forever to help with the rebuild—“

Noctis kisses him, the gentlest thing he’s ever given. Soft and uncertain and definitely overdue. Prompto smiles against his lips.

 

-

 

This story ends somewhere near the beginning.

Some stories last a lifetime to tell and this seems to be one. There are things left unanswered, but sometimes it’s unadvised to look for answers to things like magic and the decree of those above.

But there’s a promise here, in this story. There are things left unsaid, unanswered but herein lays one fact:

Prompto Argentum spends his time watching over the rebuilding of an entire world and switching duties with his friends all while remaining ever at King Noctis’ side.

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what this is and it totally went a different route to what i was aiming. said aim was for this to be a contrast to 'like sunburn'. anyway, so originally, this was supposed to be for promptisfanweek's first weekly prompt: fireworks. but i dont even know if this qualifies anymore lmao. have a go at it anyway bc it's nearly 7k and i spent an entire day writing it.
> 
> catch me on twitter: @marsipans_


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